Second Amendment in Southern Thailand

…a deadly insurgency is terrorizing Thailand’s south. The separatist movement, made up of mostly ethnic-Malay Muslims, roils the region with daily threats of sectarian violence and has prompted many Buddhist villagers, and even some monks, to take up arms in self-defense.

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“First Muslim people came to our village and asked to buy our land,” says Suphorn Nison, a soft-spoken Buddhist in his mid-40s. “But they became less diplomatic when Buddhist people declined to leave.” The following month, Nison says, two men entered a convenience store operated by Nison’s father and executed him with two shots to his head. Nison claims the gunmen were Muslim and intended to send a stern message. Most Buddhists in his village left, but those who stayed, including Nison, formed a neighborhood-security force.

That was in 2006. Today such community-defense units are ubiquitous in Thailand’s south. Nison carries a revolver with him at all times. Many other Buddhists have also armed themselves, including a demure 38-year-old teacher, an acquaintance of Nison’s, who prefers a light Glock .22.

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HuaHui, a long-bearded villager, exemplifies the kind of self-appointed power that the militia system offers Buddhists. At the entrance to his restaurant, he sits behind a makeshift bunker, holding an M-15 assault rifle. He keeps a cache of weapons on hand, along with special bullets designed to overcome “the voodoo of insurgents.” He’s been the target of drive-by shootings and bomb attacks more than a dozen times, he says. In the latest incident, “a month ago gunfire struck guests.” HuaHui sometimes patrols his district in a pickup truck, paying visits to friends—both Muslim and Buddhist—and making his presence felt to those he suspects of being on the “wrong side.” He visited a group of Chor Ror Bor in a nearby village who said the hordes of Army and police are not enough to secure the area. Later that evening, cars passing along the entry road to the village were struck by IEDs and gunfire.